To buy the right gaming laptop, you need to take care of multiple aspects. Gaming Laptops are not like the mainstream machines that are meant for work or other educational purposes. You need powerful components, better design, and high durability to set your path right to get one of the best gaming laptops under a proper budget.
You can play some of the very high-end games such as The Grand Theft Auto V, Witcher 3, Assassins Creed, Far Cry, and others with the right components. Mostly, you will find some highly expensive laptops with the perfect set of features that can handle these games. But you can also choose it depending on your budget entirely.
If you are a beginner looking for something to get started with, you might wish to start with something basic for gaming rather than a highly expensive one.
Keeping all the factors in mind, let us look at the things to consider before buying the right gaming laptop.
Table Of Contents8 Important Things To Consider When Buying A Gaming Laptop
1. Budget
There is no better way to get started with the guide for choosing a gaming laptop than mentioning first the budget. Well, even though you have the right machine in front of you, the price factor always has the biggest influence in making a decision. Let us break down the budget range and see what you can get.
1. Under $1000:
There are tons of laptops you can vouch for under this budget. If you are a beginner or an intermediate, you can easily find a decent machine for your gaming setup.
As per the market, the laptops are equipped with an i5 processor that is pretty basic to go with at this price range.
Similarly, we do have multiple machines with an i7 processor too. The laptops available in such a budget have SSD storage along with HDD and RAM between 8-16GB. However, in this budget you will get your gaming rig with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 or 1650Ti graphic card with 4GB of VRAM.
2. $1,200 – $2,000:
Next up, we have a budget between $1200-$2000 where the features are much more prominent. The best options here are with an i7 processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti or RTX 2060 or RTX 2070 GPU with 6GB or 8GB VRAM, and an easy 8-16GB RAM that might be upgradable too. Other than that, the laptops also have faster SSD with 256-512GB storage along with an HDD drive, too in some cases.
3. $2,000 – $3,000:
Now, we are spending some big bucks here and you can always go with the best there is with the intel core i7 quad core processor at the least. All the machines here will have 16GB RAM for high-end games with a combo of 512GB-1TB SSD storage.
The best aspect you can find here is excellent 8GB of GeForce RTX 2080, 3060, 3070, or 3080 GPU and display features with 4K, or QHD resolution as well. Furthermore, these laptops have a higher refresh rate with stunning visuals.
4. $3,000 or more:
We are now talking about the categories that most pro gamers look into. Not only can you have the best of all with a powerful CPU and GPU. But you can check out for high aesthetic value such as high refresh rate display, excellent cooling system, and much more.
Furthermore, you can vouch for an i7 or i9 CPU, massive 32GB or 64GB initial RAM that is upgradeable too. And for GPU you will get to see atleast NVIDIA GeForce RTX3080 8GB of VRAM and in some cases 16GB too.
2. Processor/CPU
The most important aspect to consider while you are choosing the right gaming machine is the processor of any laptop.
Along with a good amount of RAM, it is considered to help improve multitasking and bring in power to run all the high-end machines with zero lags.
First, you need at least an i5 processor in your laptop based on any budget. Anything below that might not be able to handle the high-intensity activities. Most of the laptops you will find are Intel core-based with turbo boost technology for maximum efficiency. If you have a bigger budget, it is always better to go with an i7 or i9 processor that most pro gamers consider.
3. RAM/Memory
Well, for starters, you need at least 8GB RAM to suffice all the high-intensity gaming activities.
Most of the gaming laptops you will find have an empty slot to upgrade your RAM, allowing you to increase the overall capacity.
Other than that, we would recommend anyone to go with 16GB RAM for a stunning performance all throughout. Also, the expensive machines also do have initially 32GB RAM that works like a beast. So, you can decide accordingly.
In fact, this factor also depends largely on the Graphics card you have chosen to go with on your system. The entry-level laptops with GTX 1650 will have 8GB RAM, while anything above GTX 2060 has 16GB RAM.
4. Graphic Card/GPU
There is doubt in admitting that GPU is one of the most important aspects that needs proper attention. Well, you can find both NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards with high potential and output. To start with, you can choose to go with the NVIDIA GTX 1650 for entry-level gaming or simply beginners. They give a decent performance and are also very much manageable.
Next up, for the mainstream laptops that are meant for intermediate-level gaming, you have multiple choices. You can choose NVIDIA RTX 2060 and higher for a much high-level performance and run some of the best games on the web. These are meant to be found in good budget machines. Similarly, on the AMD side, we have the RX 5600M which is good enough as well.
Moving ahead, you can also choose VR settings that may bring out more to these games and are available in the most powerful graphics card that are pretty costly overall. For much higher settings, you can find the most powerful GPU cards such as RTX 3070 series that allow you to play games in ray tracing and much better frame rates. Similarly, for AMD fans, you can look for AMD Radeon RX 6800 that enables ray tracing as well.
5. Storage
For gaming laptops, you need something that speaks speed. SSD storage drivers are much more efficient and powerful than HDD. You can mostly find all the laptops to contain either SSD only or a combo of both. It gives an incredibly faster boot-up and keeps the system sane at all times.
Also, never settle for anything below 256GB. Yes, there are chances that you might have a slot to upgrade these units. Furthermore, you can mostly find every device with 1TB HDD at the most and make the best use of it to store all files and other data.
6. Cooling Technology
We are all aware of how heated up the system gets while you have been playing games for hours now. This all leads to system lags and does not work as it should be. Each of the systems needs to have a Cooling Technology or a system that dissipates the heat outside from the laptop.
Also Read:- How to Cool Down Your Laptop While Gaming
If the system allotted a cooling mechanism that may not quite work powerful enough, you could always look to buy such cooling pads that are much more effective. But on the latest gaming laptops you will find multiple fans, a massive airvent, multiple heat pipes, and much more to keep the temperature in check and bring down the heat overall.
7. Display
It is recommended to never settle for a touch-screen laptop that may not ever serve the purpose of extensive gaming. Mostly, the laptops you need are either 15.6 inches or simply 17 inches if you are a fan of larger screens altogether. Few gaming laptops have compact 14 inches display, so its all up to your personal choice which display size you want to go for.
1. Resolution:-
The most basic resolution you can expect to find in the most decent machine as well, which is 1920 x 1080 pixels of FHD resolution. Also, with adding a few extra bucks, there is a high chance that you might even get to view 4K visuals for the best visual experience.
2. Refresh Rate:-
With 1080P resolution, you can get a refresh rate of 60Hz, which is perfect if you are a beginner or even intermediate. Adding more to this, most of the mainstream gaming laptops these days support a 120Hz or 144Hz refresh rate that ensures smooth gaming practices and extensive visual experience.
8. Brands
Lastly, another very interesting approach we can look at is the different brands for a gaming laptop. A lot of brands, such as Acer, have a good budget machine for those having a low budget.
Other than that, we personally love the brands meant for gaming laptops are Alienware, ASUS’s Republic of Gamers, and Acer’s Predator series are the top 3 choices with multiple high-end options to choose from.
Furthermore, we have MSI Gaming laptops as well that are meant for stunning results and have different ranges available. While Alienware is known for its exclusive design, ASUS takes care of many sleek and powerful machines with more room for customization.
If you are looking for something more innovative, MSI is the right answer here that also offers multiple slots for upgrades too. You might have heard of Razer as well, which is amongst the most popular brands for its high aesthetic value with RGB lighting.
Final Verdict
Here is everything you need to know about the different factors to consider while choosing a good gaming laptop. Other than all the aspects mentioned above, you can also look out for gaming keyboards with multiple features that make gaming much smoother than usual.
Also, do not miss out on the battery life in these gaming laptops. You may have to keep the charger plugged in at all times since high-end GPU settings tend to drain the battery within hours.
It all comes down to your budget since only then can you pick out and assemble the best machine for you. Well, with more money, you can get a beast but with a lesser budget, you can still go for an i7, 16GB RAM machine which is more than enough for any intermediate gamer or entry-level as well.
If at all you are still unable to decide the right gaming laptops for yourself, you can let us know in the comment section.
